by Neil Gaiman
The only wall decoration was a framed drawing—the cartoon for the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s original sketch. Crowley had bought it from the artist one hot afternoon in Florence, and felt it was superior to the final painting.34
Crowley had a bedroom, and a kitchen, and an office, and a lounge, and a toilet: each room forever clean and perfect.
He had spent an uncomfortable time in each of these rooms, during the long wait for the End of the world.
He had phoned his operatives in the Witchfinder Army again, to try to get news, but his contact, Sergeant Shadwell, had just gone out, and the dimwitted receptionist seemed unable to grasp that he was willing to talk to any of the others.
“Mr. Pulsifer is out too, love,” she told him. “He went down to Tadfield this morning. On a mission.”
“I’ll speak to anyone,” Crowley had explained.
“I’ll tell Mr. Shadwell that,” she had said, “when he gets back. Now if you don’t mind, it’s one of my mornings, and I can’t leave my gentleman like that for long or he’ll catch his death. And at two I’ve got Mrs. Ormerod and Mr. Scroggie and young Julia coming over for a sitting, and there’s the place to clean and all beforehand. But I’ll give Mr. Shadwell your message.”
Crowley gave up. He tried to read a novel, but couldn’t concentrate. He tried to sort his CDs into alphabetical order, but gave up when he discovered they already were in alphabetical order, as was his bookcase, and his collection of Soul Music.35
Eventually he settled down on the white leather sofa and gestured on the television.
“Reports are coming in,” said a worried newscaster, “uh, reports are, well, nobody seems to know what’s going on, but reports available to us would seem to, uh, indicate an increase in international tensions that would have undoubtedly been viewed as impossible this time last week when, er, everyone seemed to be getting on so nicely. Er.
“This would seem at least partly due to the spate of unusual events which have occurred over the last few days.
“Off the coast of Japan—” CROWLEY?
“Yes,” admitted Crowley.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, CROWLEY? WHAT EXACTLY HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?
“How do you mean?” Crowley asked, although he already knew.
THE BOY CALLED WARLOCK. WE HAVE BROUGHT HIM TO THE FIELDS OF MEGGIDO. THE DOG IS NOT WITH HIM. THE CHILD KNOWS NOTHING OF THE GREAT WAR. HE IS NOT OUR MASTER’S SON.
“Ah,” said Crowley.
IS THAT ALL YOU CAN SAY, CROWLEY? OUR TROOPS ARE ASSEMBLED, THE FOUR BEASTS HAVE BEGUN TO RIDE—BUT WHERE ARE THEY RIDING TO? SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG, CROWLEY. AND IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. AND, IN ALL PROBABILITY, YOUR FAULT. WE TRUST YOU HAVE A PERFECTLY REASONABLE EXPLANATION FOR ALL THIS …
“Oh, yes,” agreed Crowley, readily. “Perfectly reasonable.”
. . . BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE YOUR CHANCE TO EXPLAIN IT ALL TO US. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE ALL THE TIME THERE IS TO EXPLAIN. AND WE WILL LISTEN WITH GREAT INTEREST TO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY. AND YOUR CONVERSATION, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT WILL ACCOMPANY IT, WILL PROVIDE A SOURCE OF ENTERTAINMENT AND PLEASURE FOR ALL THE DAMNED OF HELL, CROWLEY. BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW RACKED WITH TORMENT, NO MATTER WHAT AGONIES THE LOWEST OF THE DAMNED ARE SUFFERING, CROWLEY, YOU WILL HAVE IT WORSE—
With a gesture, Crowley turned the set off.
The dull gray-green screen continued enunciating; the silence formed itself into words.
DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT TRYING TO ESCAPE US, CROWLEY. THERE IS NO ESCAPE. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. YOU WILL BE … COLLECTED …
Crowley went to the window and looked out. Something black and car-shaped was moving slowly down the street toward him. It was car-shaped enough to fool the casual observer. Crowley, who was observing very carefully, noticed that not only were the wheels not going round, but they weren’t even attached to the car. It was slowing down as it passed each house; Crowley assumed that the car’s passengers (neither of them would be driving; neither of them knew how) were peering out at the house numbers.
He had a little time. Crowley went into the kitchen, and got a plastic bucket from under the sink. Then he went back into the lounge.
The Infernal Authorities had ceased communicating. Crowley turned the television to the wall, just in case.
He walked over to the Mona Lisa.
Crowley lifted the picture down from the wall, revealing a safe. It was not a wall safe; it had been bought from a company that specialized in servicing the nuclear industry.
He unlocked it, revealing an inner door with a dial tumble lock. He spun the dial (4-0-0-4 was the code, easy to remember, the year he had slithered onto this stupid, marvelous planet, back when it was gleaming and new).
Inside the safe were a thermos flask, two heavy PVC gloves, of the kind that covered one’s entire arms, and some tongs.
Crowley paused. He eyed the flask nervously.
(There was a crash from downstairs. That had been the front door … )
He pulled on the gloves and gingerly took the flask, and the tongs, and the bucket—and, as an afterthought, he grabbed the plant mister from beside a luxuriant rubber plant—and headed for his office, walking like a man carrying a thermos flask full of something that might cause, if he dropped it or even thought about dropping it, the sort of explosion that impels graybeards to make statements like “And where this crater is now, once stood the City of Wah-Shing-Ton,” in SF B-movies.
He reached his office, nudged open the door with his shoulder. Then he bent his legs, and slowly put things down on the floor. Bucket … tongs … plant mister … and finally, deliberately, the flask.
A bead of sweat began to form on Crowley’s forehead, and trickled down into one eye. He flicked it away.
Then, with care and deliberation, he used the tongs to unscrew the top of the flask … carefully … carefully … that was it …
(A pounding on the stairs below him, and a muffled scream. That would have been the little old lady on the floor below.)
He could not afford to rush.
He gripped the flask with the tongs, and taking care not to spill the tiniest drop, he poured the contents into the plastic bucket. One false move was all it would take.
There.
Then he opened the office door about six inches, and placed the bucket on top.
He used the tongs to replace the top of the flask, then (—a crash from his outer hallway—) pulled off the PVC gloves, picked up the plant mister, and settled himself behind his desk.
“Crawlee … ?” called a guttural voice. Hastur.
“He’s through there,” hissed another voice. “I can feel the slimy little creep.” Ligur.
Hastur and Ligur.
Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren’t deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors—doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing. If it came to that, some angels weren’t paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary. On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it.
And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.
Crowley leaned back in his executive chair. He forced himself to relax and failed appallingly.
“In here, people,” he called.
“We want a word with you,” said Ligur (in a tone of voice intended to imply that “word” was synonymous with “horrifically painful eternity”), and the squat demon pushed open the office door.
The bucket teetered, then fell neatly on Ligur’s head.
Drop a lump of sodium in water. Watch it flame and burn and spin around crazily, flaring and sputtering. This was like that; just nastier.
The demon peeled and flared and flickered. Oily brown smoke oozed from it, and it screamed and it screame
d and it screamed. Then it crumpled, folded in on itself, and what was left lay glistening on the burnt and blackened circle of carpet, looking like a handful of mashed slugs.
“Hi,” said Crowley to Hastur, who had been walking behind Ligur, and had unfortunately not been so much as splashed.
There are some things that are unthinkable: there are some depths that not even demons would believe other demons would stoop to.
“. . . Holy water. You bastard,” said Hastur. “You complete bastard. He hadn’t never done nothing to you.”
“Yet,” corrected Crowley, who felt a little more comfortable, now the odds were closer to even. Closer, but not yet even, not by a long shot. Hastur was a Duke of Hell. Crowley wasn’t even a local councilor.
“Your fate will be whispered by mothers in dark places to frighten their young,” said Hastur, and then felt that the language of Hell wasn’t up to the job. “You’re going to get taken to the bloody cleaners, pal,” he added.
Crowley raised the green plastic plant mister, and sloshed it around threateningly. “Go away,” he said. He heard the phone downstairs ringing. Four times, and then the ansaphone caught it. He wondered vaguely who it was.
“You don’t frighten me,” said Hastur. He watched a drip of water leak from the nozzle and slide slowly down the side of the plastic container, toward Crowley’s hand.
“Do you know what this is?” asked Crowley. “This is a Sainsbury’s plant mister, cheapest and most efficient plant mister in the world. It can squirt a fine spray of water into the air. Do I need to tell you what’s in it? It can turn you into that,” he pointed to the mess on the carpet. “Now, go away.”
Then the drip on the side of the plant mister reached Crowley’s curled fingers, and stopped. “You’re bluffing,” said Hastur.
“Maybe I am,” said Crowley, in a tone of voice which he hoped made it quite clear that bluffing was the last thing on his mind. “And maybe I’m not. Do you feel lucky?”
Hastur gestured, and the plastic bulb dissolved like rice paper, spilling water all over Crowley’s desk, and all over Crowley’s suit.
“Yes,” said Hastur. And then he smiled. His teeth were too sharp, and his tongue flickered between them. “Do you?”
Crowley said nothing. Plan A had worked. Plan B had failed. Everything depended on Plan C, and there was one drawback to this: he had only ever planned as far as B.
“So,” hissed Hastur, “time to go, Crowley.”
“I think there’s something you ought to know,” said Crowley, stalling for time.
“And that is?” smiled Hastur.
Then the phone on Crowley’s desk rang.
He picked it up, and warned Hastur, “Don’t move. There’s something very important you should know, and I really mean it. Hallo?
“Ngh,” said Crowley. Then he said, “Nuh. Got an old friend here.”
Aziraphale hung up on him. Crowley wondered what he had wanted.
And suddenly Plan C was there, in his head. He didn’t replace the handset on the receiver. Instead he said, “Okay, Hastur. You’ve passed the test. You’re ready to start playing with the big boys.”
“Have you gone mad?”
“Nope. Don’t you understand? This was a test. The Lords of Hell had to know that you were trustworthy before we gave you command of the Legions of the Damned, in the War ahead.”
“Crowley, you are lying, or you are insane, or possibly you are both,” said Hastur, but his certainty was shaken.
Just for a moment he had entertained the possibility; that was where Crowley had got him. It was just possible that Hell was testing him. That Crowley was more than he seemed. Hastur was paranoid, which was simply a sensible and well-adjusted reaction to living in Hell, where they really were all out to get you.
Crowley began to dial a number. “’S’ okay, Duke Hastur. I wouldn’t expect you to believe it from me,” he admitted. “But why don’t we talk to the Dark Council—I am sure that they can convince you.”
The number he had dialed clicked and started to ring.
“So long, sucker,” he said.
And vanished.
In a tiny fraction of a second, Hastur was gone as well.
OVER THE YEARS a huge number of theological man-hours have been spent debating the famous question:
How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?
In order to arrive at an answer, the following facts must be taken into consideration:
Firstly, angels simply don’t dance. It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that mark an angel. They may listen appreciatively to the Music of the Spheres, but they don’t feel the urge to get down and boogie to it. So, none.
At least, nearly none. Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen’s club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good.
So providing the dance was a gavotte, and providing that he had a suitable partner (also able, for the sake of argument, both to gavotte, and to dance it on the head of a pin), the answer is a straightforward one.
Then again, you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They’re of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance.36
And if you put it that way, the answer is, quite a lot actually, providing they abandon their physical bodies, which is a picnic for a demon. Demons aren’t bound by physics. If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them.37 But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons.
For those of angel stock or demon breed, size, and shape, and composition, are simply options.
Crowley is currently traveling incredibly fast down a telephone line.
RING.
Crowley went through two telephone exchanges at a very respectable fraction of light-speed. Hastur was a little way behind him: four or five inches, but at that size it gave Crowley a very comfortable lead. One that would vanish, of course, when he came out the other end.
They were too small for sound, but demons don’t necessarily need sound to communicate. He could hear Hastur screaming behind him, “You bastard! I’ll get you. You can’t escape me!”
RING.
“Wherever you come out, I’ll come out too! You won’t get away!”
Crowley had traveled through over twenty miles of cable in less than a second.
Hastur was close behind him. Crowley was going to have to time this whole thing very, very carefully.
RING.
That was the third ring. Well, thought Crowley, here goes nothing.
He stopped, suddenly, and watched Hastur shoot past him. Hastur turned and—
RING.
Crowley shot out through the phone line, zapped through the plastic sheathing, and materialized, full-size and out of breath, in his lounge.
click.
The outgoing message tape began to turn on his ansaphone. Then there was a beep, and, as the incoming message tape turned, a voice from the speaker screamed, after the beep, “Right! What? … You bloody snake!”
The little red message light began to flash.
On and off and on and off, like a tiny, red, angry eye.
Crowley really wished he had some more holy water and the time to hold the cassette in it until it dissolved. But getting hold of Ligur’s terminal bath had been dangerous enough, he’d had it for years just in case, and even its presence in the room made him uneasy. Or … or maybe … yes, what would happen if he put the cassette in the car? He could play Hastur over and over again, until he turned into Freddie Mercury. No. He might be a bastard, but you could only go so far.
There was a rumble of distant thunder.
He had no time to spare.
He went anyway. He ran down to his Bentley and drove toward the West End as if all the demons of hell were after him. Which was more or less the case.
MADAME TRACY HEARD Mr. Shadwell’s slow tread come up the stairs. It was slower than usual, and paused every few steps. Normally he came up the stairs as if he hated every one of them.
She opened her door. He was leaning against the landing wall.
“Why, Mr. Shadwell,” she said, “whatever have you done to your hand?”
“Get away frae me, wumman,” Shadwell groaned. “I dinna know my ane powers!”
“Why are you holding it out like that?”
Shadwell tried to back into the wall.
“Stand back, I tell ye! I canna be responsible!”
“What on earth has happened to you, Mr. Shadwell?” said Madame Tracy, trying to take his hand.
“Nothing on earth! Nothing on earth!”
She managed to grab his arm. He, Shadwell, scourge of evil, was powerless to resist being drawn into her flat.
He’d never been in it before, at least in his waking moments. His dreams had furnished it in silks, rich hangings, and what he thought of as scented ungulants. Admittedly, it did have a bead curtain in the entrance to the kitchenette and a lamp made rather inexpertly from a Chianti bottle, because Madame Tracy’s apprehension of what was chic, like Aziraphale’s, had grounded around 1953. And there was a table in the middle of the room with a velvet cloth on it and, on the cloth, the crystal ball which increasingly was Madame Tracy’s means of earning a living.
“I think you could do with a good lie-down, Mr. Shadwell,” she said, in a voice that brooked no argument, and led him on into the bedroom. He was too bewildered to protest.
“But young Newt is out there,” Shadwell muttered, “in thrall to heathen passions and occult wiles.”
“Then I’m sure he’ll know what to do about them,” said Madame Tracy briskly, whose mental picture of what Newt was going through was probably much closer to reality than was Shadwell’s. “And I’m sure he wouldn’t like to think of you getting yourself worked up into a state here. Just you lie down, and I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea.”